Archive for the ‘Photography tips’ Category

Do your knees quake at the thought of swinging across the jungle canopy suspended from a steel thread? If so, zip-lining may not be for you. But if you are into a fun exhilarating adventure, then be sure to book a zip-lining adventure in a place like Belize or St. Lucia. But take some precautions first.

Devil’s Island was made famous in the movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen: “Papillon.” But the Devil’s Island that tourists are welcomed on today is not the island associated with the unfortunate French prisoner, Papillon (Henri Charriere).

It’s that time of the year for many of us around the world, when the dreamy warm days of autumn slip into the bone-chilling, teeth-chattering days of winter.

But wintertime can be the best time for getting fabulous shots like the frosted leaf showing here. While there are gray days, there will also be days of brilliant blue skies, bright golden sunshine, and sparkling snow blankets, dazzled in twinkling diamonds. How can anyone resist shooting photographs under those conditions? I certainly can’t.

But along with wintry conditions comes cold, and digital cameras (and their batteries) don’t like extreme temperatures of either variety, hot or cold. So, you must take precautions when using your digital camera outdoors in the winter.

With the shortening days (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere) we are being treated to some of the most glorious sunsets and sunrises. Do you have trouble capturing sunsets or sunrises? If so, here are a few tips to help you capture all those blazing colors.

Are you taking photos and letting them sit in your computer’s digital dungeons, or worse, on a memory card?What a shame since sites like Flickr are just a mouse click away.I spent several hours at a harvest festival outside of our city this weekend. The colors and the festivites were so vibrant; there was no end to photo opportunities.

This little Halloween teddy bear came into my possession (my husband won him in a “fish pond”). I loved his strong orange color and decided to add him to my shots. He turned out to be the perfect subject, so well-behaved and so patient.

I could have posted this photo of him as I had taken it, but Flickr also offers this cool photo manipulation program called, “Picnik.” And well, using Picnik, is as much fun as a picnic. And it’s so easy.

You can do it, too. Like I did, you can manipulate (tweak) your photo’s colors, contrast, and midtones. And you can add a frame or text, like the orange text I added to the white sign. It was just crying out for a little creativity.

Flickr is so easy to use and it’s free unless you choose to go “Pro” and even that is ridiculously inexpensive.

Go on. Get your photos out of your computer’s digital dungeon and share them with friends and family. Or the world.

Some of us call it urban blight, some of us call it street soul, some of us call it a shame, while others of us simply call it, “beautiful.”

Is there a city or town in the world that doesn’t sport its share of graffiti? Our city in central Alberta is no different. And while our city has sent out its graffiti-removal brigade, thank goodness the cleaning squad hasn’t found all of it. This artwork, with its nasty invectives and racial slurs, especially viewed against the backdrop of the setting sun, can be very intriguing.

(An early morning view of the beautiful Mission San Jose in San Antonio’s Missions National Park.)

Thank you, Hurricane Gustav. We are sitting high and dry in one of the loveliest cities in North America, San Antonio. We are supposed to be in New Orleans. But thanks to a little convincing by Gustav and American officials, we changed our plans.

On the day we were set to arrive in NOLA, evacuation orders forced nearly two million folks to leave the southern seaboard. We had planned a holiday riding the rails, the Amtrak rails, but the trains were needed to take people out of New Orleans, so Amtrak cancelled our reservations.

We were in Houston (another area slated to be hit by Gustav) so we had no choice but to rent a car and head north to San Antonio. In fact, on our way, we passed a convoy of 2 dozen buses that were heading south on a rescue mission. Later, on TV, we watched as an endless line of buses, filled with those folks escaping the storm, headed away to safer zones like Dallas and Houston.

Now we are watching as the eye of Gustav makes landfall — the good news, maybe, for New Orleans, is that the eye will be passing farther to the west than expected.

But in the meantime, we are in San Antonio, where we have rented a comfortable house, we have walked the famous Riverwalk, we have ridden the canal boats, we have paid homage to the Alamo, and we have made an early morning trek to the old Spanish missions. What a joy!

My husband and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary yesterday. Our formal plans had us dining at a very cool eatery called “The Bootlegger Italian Bistro,” in South Las Vegas. We had eaten there when we first arrived in Vegas and thought it would be a nice place, with its classic old gangster ambience, to have our anniversary dinner.

But our plans changed. Vegas has a way of doing that to plans. So, we cancelled our reservations in favor of another place. And we are so glad we did. We had one of our best times yet in Las Vegas.